Friday, October 17, 2025

Fri.-Sabbath, 10/17-19/25 Devotion

Thank God—Sunday is almost here. We get to go back to church. In order to help us prepare for Sabbath worship, here are some good words from John Calvin. He is commenting on Galatians 2:16. . . .

“(v. 16): ‘But by the faith of [in] Jesus Christ.' [Paul] does not merely state that ceremonies or works of any kind, are insufficient without the assistance of faith, but meets their denial by a statement admitting of no exception, as if he had said, ‘Not by works, but by the faith of [in] Christ alone.’ In any other point of view, the sentiment would have been trivial and foreign to the purpose; for the false apostles did not reject Christ nor faith, but demanded that cere-monies should be joined with them. If Paul had admitted this claim, they would have been perfectly at one, and he would have been under no neces-sity to agitate the church by this unpleasant debate. Let it therefore remain settled, that the proposition is so framed as to admit of no exception, ‘that we are justified in no other way than by faith,’ or, ‘that a we are not justified but by faith,’ or, which amounts to the same thing, ‘that we are justified by faith alone.’ "